Troubles, My Old Friend
by Mellaithwen
Summary: Pretty soon, Dean’s gonna crack. Spoilers for 2x14 Born Under A Bad Sign.


**Troubles, My Old Friend**

**By Mellaithwen**

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**Rating**: **T**

**Genre: Angst/Drama**

**Disclaimer: the Winchester's aren't mine, guys. I swear. No, _really._**

**Summary: Pretty soon, Dean's gonna crack. Spoilers for 2x14 Born Under A Bad Sign.**

* * *

Fear is constant.It's one of the few things in the world that can be relied on to always be there. Hiding, waiting, clicking its tongue right next to your ear and licking the hairs on the back of your neck dry, until they ping up like straightened springs impaled into your backbone.

It's that shiver up your spine when you're walking down a dark corridor and the distance behind you and in front of you is the same. Just as _far_. When the lights are on sensors and apparently you alone just isn't enough to stop you from being plunged into black.

It's walking upstairs when it's dark below and imagining a hand shooting through the banisters and yanking hard on your ankle. It's the fear of falling. It's the fear of landing and breaking.

It's all of this and more.

It's seeing a pair of eyes in that crack where the curtains don't quite touch. It's seeing a figure in the shadows when lightning illuminates their gnarled features for just a second. It's pattering on a window when there's no rain or wind or trees to explain the noise away.

It's the creak of a new house and knocking doors at midnight.

It's all of this and more.

It's hearing the ropes snap. It's hearing the edge to a voice that's never that sharp. It's hit after hit. It's skin ripping from the force of knuckles on bone. Skull.

It's feeling his fingers dig deep into the wound, gouging at damaged tissue and making drops of fresh blood escape their smothering bandage until it's drenching the inside of your shirt with crimson.

It's your little brother calling you useless, threatening to torture you until you're left screaming for mercy. It's those eyes, those _eyes_ that glare through Sam's. It's wrong and it's a lie and it's breaking your heart to hear it.

It's all of this and more.

Because deep down you know he's right.

* * *

"_I know demons lie, but do they ever tell the truth too?"_

"_Sometimes, I guess. Especially if they know it'll mess with your head."_

* * *

His eyes are an inky black. A dark, dark surface. A coating of oil hiding the Iris. There's nothing there. You're not looking at Sam's eyes—lying to you with words not Sam's own. You're staring into a black pit of nothing.

You're afraid of the dark, and you're not ashamed to admit it.

Fire came from the dark, and left black charred remains in its wake. Sammy wailed in the dark until the night-light came back on—something you had always been secretly relieved about.

You had to be afraid, because if you weren't afraid, you wouldn't believe and if you didn't believe, you were as good as dead when the urban legend came charging at you with dripping fangs hell bent on sinking them deep into your skin.

You had to believe that there was always something hiding in the shadows and that if you looked close enough you'd see that glinting pair of eyes, human or no, glaring back.

Waiting. Biding their time.

Only now, Sam's in the shadows—hidden and held back—and you can't fight back, you can't hurt Sam. So you listen instead.

In-between bleeding of course.

* * *

"_I can see it in your eyes Dean, you're worthless...you couldn't save your Dad and deep down you know that you can't save your brother."_

* * *

You can feel your nose weakening under each blow. Sam—no, Meg, or...god whatever the hell she…_it_ is, its words are drowned out by the pain. And every time awareness dares come near, knuckles smack into your cheekbone and forehead and nose and jaw and the blood is rushing so fast beneath the surface that your skin is pounding and dripping with blood that falls from torn and broken flesh.

This is payback. This is retribution, bloody and painful and _fuck._

It's funny really.

You hear the squelch before you feel...you feel...god you _feel_.

It's agony, its nails penetrating tissue. It's an invasion; fingers running the rim of broken skin from a bullet. _Pushing in, pulling out, pushing in._ God you can't breathe, your chest tightens and you try to stiffen yourself against the pain. You try so hard to just control it but the burden of pain is clear.

You're biting down on a scream so hard that you're tongue tears and bleeds with the mixture already pouring from your nose down your chin. You're muffling a scream and opening your mouth as little as possible but it's still there. You reach out, your hand on Sam's wrist, begging and pleading by digging your own nails in. Wishing it'd just stop, stop, STOP.

* * *

"_You'll live. You'll live to regret this."_

* * *

There's something about the way he pulls back his fist that makes you sure it's a final blow. There's only so long a guy can talk about what he wants to do to you, before actually doing it. The torture's evident in the sheer pain of your arm and maybe that enough for this particularly pissed off demon.

Maybe your death will bring more closure, even if it does destroy Sammy.

Maybe you can hold on while he beats you again and again.

Maybe you're too tired.

Or maybe Bobby's stronger than he looks.

If it didn't hurt so much, you might have winced on Sam's behalf. After all, you know how a hot poker feels when it's pressed up against your skin with that much intent behind its wielder.

You know that scream will stay with you forever.

Everything will.

* * *

"_Dean, back from the dead, getting to be a regular thing for you isn't it? Like a cockroach."_

* * *

At first all you can do is try to breathe. Hold a lax palm against your shoulder. Your fingers throb from the sudden lack of anything because you were holding on to Sam's wrist so tightly in an attempt to pry him away from your wound that now they feel strained and useless.

You watch the black smog just like you've always watched it. Making sure it gets the hell away from you, gets the _HELL_ away from you.

It takes all of your strength just to make your muscles obey, make your limbs strong enough to pull you the hell up

"Sammy?"

Yeah that hurts. Everything hurts.

Sam's like a terrified rabbit and yeah, those headlights, those yellow damn headlights are following him everywhere. But for now, it's just Bobby swallowing, his adam's apple bobbing up and down like there's invisible whisky getting chugged. God you could do with...something. Scotch maybe. Something bitter that gets _drunk_. That makes it easier.

Just Bobby and you, bloody you, crumpled and staring.

"Did I miss anything?" Sam asks breathless.

_Idiot._ You think, _god damn son of a bitch, moron_.

You have to strike out, strike back because even if the demon's gone, Sam's still there and you both know only too well not to let the cracks in the armour get big enough for demons to worm through. Not to mention it's a smart-ass comment. Hell, that's _you're_ job.

And damn it, your arm is on fire and so is Sam's, come to think of it, but you're the one who just got the shit kicked out of you by your _not-so-_little_-and-not-quite-_brother.

Only now your knuckles are hurting. Another injury to add to the list as you groan and slip to the ground in exasperated agony.

* * *

"_By the way you really look like crap, Dean."_

"_Yeah, right back at you."_

* * *

When you're clutching the wheel and Sam's telling you the same spiel that you heard from Meg...the same record playing over again that sometimes, just sometimes, they were awake for some of it. When you're hearing Sam blame himself and repeat the same speech that he has to die like he's a suicidal maniac, the selfish part of you that never sees the light of day, wishes Sam would just remember what he did to _you_.

At least then you'd get the chance to shrug the whole thing off out loud instead of buckling it up tight. Maybe you'd even get the brooding apology your brother's reserving for everyone else right now instead of the pleading stern voice that says _"Kill me already."_

It's killing _you_ that _you've_ been duped twice by your loved ones...no, by the bastards squatting _inside_ of your loved ones. And it's always because you're hearing exactly what you've wanted to hear all along.

"_I don't wanna hurt anyone else, I don't wanna hurt you."_

You're not afraid of dying, you're just afraid of it being by Sam's hand. Because then you know there's no saving him, because you're dead and you're the only one who can really step back and save him _for_ _him._

"_You watch out for this family, you always have."_

You're really afraid that the moment you hear the words you want _need _to hear, they'll be your last, or Sam's last, or someone else's last words.

Just like Dad.

That bottle, inside your head? The one you're cramming your feelings and emotions and anxieties into? The one that's slowly but surely gonna make your head explode from all of the headaches and confusion and _pain_?

It's cracking and pretty soon it's gonna break.

Pretty soon _you're_ gonna break.

You just have to remember to duck away from the shards of glass that are gonna slice into your skin and chop you into millions of tiny pieces when that bottle _does_ break, is all.

_**-Fin.**_

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